The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to nearly double the number of peacekeepers in South Sudan to more than 14,000 and urged swift action to end a violent political and ethnic conflict that threatens to become a full-blown civil war.

Amid reports of mass graves, extrajudicial killings and rapes,
tens of thousands of civilians have sought refuge in UN base camps
that in some cases were described as under siege.

There appeared to be no sign of a rapprochement today between
the central players in the crisis: President Salva Kiir, an ethnic
Dinka, and the former vice-president, Riek Machar, who is a Nuer,
as the ethnic killings threaten the world’s newest nation.

“There are definitely ethnic undertones to what is happening,”
said Toby Lanzer, the Deputy Special Representative to the UN
Mission in South Sudan. “But this is a political struggle within
the ruling party. It’s actually by addressing this that we are
going to be able to get things under control.”

Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, Tedros Adhanom, said leaders of six
East African countries will travel to South Sudan today to try to
advance peace talks and end 10 days of violence.

The crisis was sparked by fighting between Dinka and Nuer
soldiers. President Kiir then accused Mr Machar of trying to
orchestrate a coup. Mr Machar had denied the charge, but is leading
a rebellion that has seized vital parts of South Sudan, including
Bentiu, the capital of the oil-rich Unity State.

The fighting has spread to five of the country’s 10 states,
including Upper Nile, another oil-producing region.

The Security Council action followed a report by the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, that at least one mass
grave has been discovered in Bentiu, with “reportedly at least two
other mass graves”, near Juba, the capital and South Sudan’s
largest city.

Mr Lanzer told the BBC in an interview that the dead were
numbered in the “thousands”. One peacekeeper has been killed, and
several have been wounded.

The UN resolution authorises the UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon’s request to temporarily transfer – with the permission of
their governments – troops assigned to other peacekeeping missions
in Africa, including in Sudan, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Congo. He
said he has reached out to the African Union and countries such as
Ethiopia and Rwanda, traditional suppliers of peacekeeping troops
in Africa, and appealed to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Nuer soldiers and gangs have reportedly targeted Dinka in
Bentiu, Bor and Juba, killing many and forcing tens of thousands to
seek refuge in UN compounds.

Meanwhile, in interviews over two days this week, more than two
dozen displaced Nuer civilians described a campaign of targeted
killings, rapes and beatings by Dinka soldiers. The violence has
included the alleged killing of scores of young Nuer in a secret
detention facility and their bodies buried in four shallow
graves.

Witnesses said Nuer men have been rounded up across Juba and
many thrown in prisons for days, beaten with rifle butts or killed
on the spot. Some had their hands tied up with wire, their arms and
heads slashed with machetes, witnesses said. Dinka soldiers
reportedly also set fire to and looted Nuer houses. Three-year-old
Nyajing Gadet was among the victims.

Dinka government soldiers arrived in her Juba neighbourhood last
week to hunt down Nuer, house by house, her mother recalled. Dinka
neighbors pointed the soldiers to the family’s home.

Soldiers fired through the walls and windows. A bullet grazed
Nyajing’s head, spilling blood down her tiny face, as her father
held her in his arms. “They didn’t care if they killed a child,”
said her mother, Elizabeth Nakiru, cradling Nyajing, who had a
thick white bandage wrapped around her head. Both were inside a
crowded tent in a UN compound where they had sought shelter, along
with other Nuer. “They were firing on anyone who was Nuer.”

The South Sudanese military acknowledged on Tuesday that abuses
against Nuer civilians had taken place and ordered a probe of the
army – still referred to as the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or
SPLA – as well as police and security units involved in the
operations last week.

“The SPLA we cannot say is perfect. There might be people there
who are not properly oriented as national soldiers,” said Col
Philip Aguer, a spokesman for the military. “For us to build a
nation, we have to carry out a serious investigation. This is bad
behaviour, and it will create a big hole in the body of the
military.”

Chiok Ring, 32, was stopped by Dinka soldiers in another part of
the city. He and four other Nuer men, including his brother, were
in his car, Mr Ring recalled. They were easy to spot: all had six
parallel horizontal lines etched across their forehead with a
razor, part of the Nuer initiation into adulthood.

One soldier barked: “You are Nuer. Come out.”

“Then, they started to shoot at us,” Mr Ring said. “My brother
and my three friends were killed. I ran to a church and hid. There
were women and children there, so the soldiers did not enter.”

Mr Ring made his way to the main UN base in Juba, joining an
estimated 20,000 people who live in a sea of crowded tents, many
made from blankets and fixed to muddy ground. They sleep on dirty
mattresses and dry the few clothes they possess on barbed wire.
They depend on aid workers for food and water. The stench of mud
and sewage wafts through the sanctuary, which aid workers say has
become a breeding zone for malaria and other illnesses.

Most of the ethnic attacks have targeted Nuer men of fighting
age, although in some cases soldiers appeared to fire randomly into
houses occupied by Nuer and assault Nuer women and children. Upon
arriving at the UN compound in Juba last week, victims told aid
workers that sexual assaults had occurred.

Nyajing’s mother, Nakiru, tried to return home last week. She
had left some flour in their house, and she wanted to retrieve it
to feed her children. But when she arrived, she found her Dinka
neighbours had seized her house, she said. When she tried to break
in, two Dinka soldiers spotted her and beat her. Like many of her
fellow Nuer, she fears leaving the UN compound.